RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. - The No. 21 Arkansas Tech Golden Suns softball team will host the final home games of the 2018 season this Friday and Saturday at the Chartwells Women's Sports Complex, welcoming No. 4 Southern Arkansas for a four-game series. Friday's doubleheader is slated to begin at 3 p.m., while Saturday's games begin at noon.

Live video and statistics for all games will be available at www.arkansastechsports.com. Seniors Janie Knowles and Alix Boulanger will be honored between Saturday's games.

The Lady Muleriders (44-4, 33-3 Great American Conference) need to win one more game to lock up the Great American Conference's regular-season championship, and a pair of wins would clinch the overall top seed for SAU in the upcoming conference tournament. 

SAU has been on a roll for the entire season, and enters the weekend on a 15-game winning streak, last falling on March 30 to Ouachita Baptist in a 2-1 setback. Of the Lady Muleriders' four losses, only one has been by more than one run - a 15-8 loss to Southern Nazarene on March 10.

Arkansas Tech (35-13, 26-10) looks to do what no other team in the Great American Conference has been able to do this season - take a series from the league's first-place team. The Golden Suns are currently in second place, with a 1.5 game lead over Southeastern Oklahoma for second place and a six-game lead over Harding in Henderson State, who sit in a tie for fourth.

Southern Arkansas boasts one of the nation's most fearsome offensive attacks, averaging nearly seven runs per contest. Leading the way offensively has been Brooke Goad, who leads all of Division II with her 24 home runs, and recently set the all-time Division II home runs record with her 80th career blast. While Goad has garnered the lion's share of the headlines for her notable accomplishments, the SAU lineup reads like a virtual Murderer's Row, with three additional SAU players reaching the 10 home run mark already and three others threatening to reach that plateau. 

The Lady Muleriders have matched their offensive success with one of the top pitching units in the nation. Victoria Taylor has been the ace for SAU, going 21-0 with a 1.09 ERA, fanning 172 in 148.1 innings of work. Brooke Ford-Nelson has also proven more than capable in the circle, going 11-3 with a 1.51 ERA. As a unit, the SAU pitchers rank sixth nationally in earned run average, with a team ERA of 1.60.

Meanwhile, the Golden Suns have jumped ahead of the remainder of the pack in the GAC, having won 14 of the last 17 contests. Junior Sarah Coronado is coming off a week where she hit nearly .700, while Ashton Sangster continues to impress both at the plate and on the basepaths, hitting a team-best .369 while being a perfect 25-of-25 on the basepaths. Megan Goodnight continues to lead Arkansas Tech in the pitcher's circle, going 13-2 with a 1.49 ERA, notching a school record nine saves in the process.